Some may say that I am a pessimist. Like most pessimists, I prefer to call myself a realist. So, last week and the preceding weekend, when practically every other outlet was claiming that Cornell hockey was back on track, this writer had a more measured approached. One weekend of two games of three or more goals does not constitute a trend.

Cornell has controlled contests against Clarkson, Yale, Brown and Penn State to date. The Frozen Apple contest saw Cornell impose its reserved style on the Nittany Lions for 35-40 minutes of the game. In blunt terms, the first period at Madison Square Garden was frightening. The Big Red was stitched into its own end while Penn Staters dashed in and out of the slot unchallenged.

Offense was not the problem. Defense was. Oppressive defense produces deadly offense. There were no outlets to release the cascade of an offensive rush. There were no battle lines drawn along the blue line.

The first intermission passed, then the game belonged predominantly to Cornell. Rather than recount the entire game, take a minute to marvel at the effort it took Penn State to best Mitch Gillam even when the Red's defensive play was not at the level to which he is accustomed. It took a high-speed transition play, forwards crashing the crease unchallenged, and, from Penn State's perspective, traffic so beautifully close to goaltender interference without crossing that subjective line to slip one by the sophomore netminder.

The fact that Penn State had such a wide berth to maneuver is troubling. Gillam's performance is confidence-inspiring. Cornell's collective opinion, expressed in the comments of Schafer, Lowry, and Knisley after the game, assuages any fears that the Big Red viewed its first period as anything better than poor.

Then, Cornell won in the most Cornellian, or as this writer dubbed it after the game, Schaferian, way.

Cornell played Cornell hockey from behind. That is the story of the Clarkson, Yale, and Penn State contests.

It is easy to play cool, calm, and collected defense with a lead. It is even easy to do it in a nil-nil contest. It is an exercise in absolute mental discipline and restraint to execute such a game plan when trailing. Nevertheless, that is what Cornell has proven that it can do. This reflects a hallmark that deserves proper appreciation.

The Schaferian game has many valuable assets. The ability to chase down a leading foe has not been one of them historically. Even Schafer's five ECAC Hockey championship teams found it difficult to mount comebacks. This team has begun to manifest an eerie calmness.

The scoring drought has receded. Temporarily, at least. Does this writer have faith that this Cornell team can and should score? Yes. Am I terrified that another scoring slump may come? [Insert preferred exclamation here] yes!

Mike Schafer said it best after the Frozen Apple, "we have to be comfortable with that...Be comfortable with who we are...Produce offense, but produce it our way." He is absolutely correct. The identity of Cornell hockey has never been one of haphazard, all-star-style efforts like one may find at other programs. It is about reservation and patience.

Cornell can produce offense in a myriad of ways. This writer must concede that those in the deflection crowd were equally right that more traffic and redirecting sticks would break the drought. They have. However, as this writer anticipated, creativity and taking the high-probability transition play have contributed to the Red's current run of goal-scoring fortune.

Joel Lowry found Eric Freschi to take down Clarkson on a breakaway in overtime. It was an improvisation on an apparently blown transition into the offensive zone and a never-say-die effort from Cole Bardreau that led to Christian Hilbrich's game-winning goal against Yale. John Knisley, Joel Lowry, and John McCarron jumped into the play that bested Skoff for the winning marker in the Frozen Apple. Neither means should be preferred. Both are now clicking.

Schafer's teams win when they are scoring dirty goals off of traffic, tips, and deflections, and undressing opponents with creativity in transition without becoming dependent upon either method but doing each as well as the best teams at either.

No member of the Lynah Faithful, especially this writer, would ask for Cornell hockey to change its identity. The tight battle of a low-scoring contest is for what we live from the moment that we become initiated into the traditions of Lynah Rink.

The Class of 2015 stepped up over the last few contests to defend that tradition. In Cornell's four most recent wins, the Big Red has scored 12 goals. Only three of those goals have not benefited from the contribution of a senior. Joel Lowry and John McCarron have shone in particular.

Lowry is in the midst of a five-game point streak while his defensive play remains of a high quality. McCarron has assisted on Cornell's last two game-winning tallies and registered an assist on every Red goal against Penn State. John McCarron has not potted a goal yet, but in an unselfish manner befitting a good captain, he has changed the flow of games to guarantee his team victory. He realizes that it is the captains who lead who are remembered, not necessarily those who score.

Denver comes to town. The Pioneers bring with them a style of play that is slightly more physical than that of Penn State, but nearly identical in terms of its LMFAO-like clamoring for shots. The series will be one for the ages. It will be a battle between two of the four most dominant programs in the history of college hockey. Joey LaLeggia expects Denver to need to generate its own energy because road venues do not carry the energy of Magness Arena. Not everyone can have a building whose typical crowd averages below 80.0% capacity, Joey. The Lynah Faithful will do their best.

In keeping with the topic of LaLeggia, this weekend's series has the makings of an all-star showdown between two of the nation's best defensemen. Joey LaLeggia leads all defenseman in terms of goals scored per game. That is until Joakim Ryan laces his skates again. It is rumored that the nation's best defenseman could return to the Cornell line-up for this series. Both LaLeggia and Ryan are game-changing players. Their showdown on East Hill would be an intriguing storyline.

Ryan's return is not the only component that could propel Cornell further in the right direction. John Knisley found his scoring at Madison Square Garden. He has the determination and touch to continue to be a major role player. A fellow Rochester-area native, Cole Bardreau, has been knocking on the door for an explosive game since a modest showing at Princeton. At one point, he was on a four-game point streak. Where John Knisley found his touch, Jeff Kubiak got excruciatingly close. When little was going right for Cornell in the Frozen Apple, it was Kubiak who threatened most to tame the Lions.

Calmness and patience are the emerging hallmarks of this team. Even knowing that it will play a defensive game, it displays the character and psychological strength to play hockey its way when chasing a lead. This is uncommon resolve. Even though not that common among Schafer's teams, it is appropriately Cornellian. This team has shown the ability to weather the storm, endure misfortune, and bide its time while laying in wait like a predator poised to pounce.

It cares not how it hauls down its prey. It cares merely that it is the hunter, licking its teeth after slaying its challenger.

Rivalries in sports stratify themselves neatly. Sometimes, assigned rungs differ over time. Other times, a placement is permanent; it represents what is right in the world. Rivalries with Boston University, Yale, and Union fit nicely into the first category while the Cornell-Harvard rivalry fits the latter perfectly. Two other groupings exist.

The first is the forefront, occasional rivalry. The Cornell-Wisconsin series is the best example of this. Each installment has meant something important to either one or both of the programs. Meetings in the 1970 and 1973 Frozen Fours, the 2006 Regional Final, and 1998 Badger Hockey Showdown meet these criteria. Cornell's contests with Michigan are at or approaching this level. These episodic melodramas involve usually a certain level of mutual respect.

The fourth kind. Oh, yes, the fourth kind. These are the types of rivalries that retreat to the nether regions of the subconscious. When asked which teams are your preferred team's rivals, this opponent surely would slip your mind. But, upon your team meeting it, a gestalt overcomes you: man, you hate these guys. You do not know why, but to your very core, you loathe them.

Enter Denver.

Denver is the program that dashed the dreams of some of Cornell hockey's giants. Ken Dryden, Pete Tufford, and Mike Schafer suffered career-ending defeats against the Pioneers. Joe Nieuwendyk's one trip to the NCAA tournament ended on the ice of Denver Arena in 1986. Both games occurred under unfortunate, if not suspicious, circumstances.

The 1968-69 Cornell hockey team advanced to the NCAA Championship Final to confront Denver. Denver demolished Harvard two days before the title tilt. Murray Armstrong, the legendary Pioneer coach, predicted after his team's win, "now, we can start thinking about Tech." Cornell proved Armstrong to be no oracle.

This was not the only way by which Murray Armstrong maligned Cornell. Armstrong mocked as juvenile Harkness' style of approaching coaching as a didactic and strategic exercise. The Denver coach treated his players as professionals with little emphasis on interpersonal relationships and systems. Harkness proved to be the first data point on the game's modern trend.

Organizers of the NCAA tournament gave a decided, if not determinative, advantage to Denver. The Pioneers played on Thursday. Cornell played on Friday. The two battled for the ultimate prize on Saturday. A hard-fought overtime contest against Michigan Tech aggravated Cornell's situation. The recuperative differential and playing in Denver's home state at Colorado Springs proved more than significant in contributing to the Pioneers's one-goal margin of victory. Dryden and Tufford ended their careers with three ECAC Hockey championships but one NCAA national championship. Immediately, disfavor and disadvantage created distaste between the hockey programs of Cornell University and the University of Denver.

A statue of Murray Armstrong may occupy the floor space of Magness Arena, but Denver fans are lacking in historical knowledge of their program. Denver fans repeat, repeat, and repeat again that Cornell has never beaten Denver in the Frozen Four. If one assumes that these claims refer not to the adoption of "Frozen Four" branding and instead reference the backronymed championship weekend, this statement is false. Denver fans suffer from collective amnesia.

It is understandable why. 1969 belonged to Murray Armstrong and Denver. 1972 belonged to Dick Bertrand and Cornell. A Red team much faster and skilled than its Denver opponent dissected and decimated Armstrong's squad. Cornell surged to a three-goal lead and never looked back. Revenge was exacted in a 7-2 victory at Boston Garden. It was certainly a day that has proven worth forgetting for DU fans.

The next flash point in a smoldering series came in 1986. Controversially, Cornell, champion of ECAC Hockey, was sent on the road in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Denver Arena served as its host. Its first opponent was the Pioneers. The two-game affair was a total-goals injustice. Greats like Natyshak and Schafer ended their seasons on the ice of Denver Arena with a 4-3 win. Yes, Cornell's season ended on a non-conciliatory win. Why? The Pioneers had scored one more goal overall.

Cornell was the only road team to register a victory during that postseason.

This inanity ended the career of Cornell's future program-rejuvenating coach and marked the only time that Nieuwendyk would grace the ice of the NCAA tournament. The passage of 27 years separated the 1986 NCAA tournament battle, and Cornell's and Denver's next meeting in January 2013. This is not for want of trying on the part of the NCAA organizers.

Cornell has made the NCAA tournament 10 times since the 1986 postseason. The Pioneers of Denver have made the tournament six of those times. Tournament organizers placed Cornell and Denver on collision courses in regionals in one-third of those coinciding appearances. If it were not for both programs suffering upsets in 2010 or a limping Denver succumbing to Ferris State in 2012, more bile would stir in the bellies of Cornell and Denver teams when thinking of the other.

Stir it does nonetheless. These almost meetings in the tournament have not abated the mutual loathing. This writer must concede that the first dose of the Cornell-Denver series that he experienced in real time was the January 2013 series at Magness Arena. That is when it became apparent that laundry does hold memories.

It was undeniable from the opening face-off and the first hits that these teams did not like each other. No player on either roster was alive the last time that the two programs had met, but they knew one thing: they neither liked nor respected the other team. It was an odd phenomenon for someone more acquainted with the dynamics of modern rivalries against Boston University, Harvard, Wisconsin, and Yale in which mutual respect is a cognizable, albeit sometimes minor, component.

Gratuitously Denver-favoring WCHA officials in the 2013 series instigated tensions between two teams during the two-game slug fest. We all remember the sound byte from Mike Schafer that followed. Misguided, it was not. This writer's analysis following that series indicated heavily that WCHA officials were the most biased in out-of-conference contests.

One anecdote should suffice. In one game at Denver, Teemu Tiitinen received 15 penalty minutes during game play. In the 25 other games that he has played, he has received six total minutes of penalties.

Oh, how can we forget the parting gift of 40 minutes of penalties against Cornell after the whistle? Good times. Denver got none. Cornell so proved that it could skate with and dominate Denver in that series that the officials found it necessary to make the New-York visitors kill off two five-minute majors. Kill them off, Cornell did. The announcers even admitted that they had never witnessed a team endure such a hosing so well.

I guess the altitude was not enough. Joel Lowry was right, there was nothing to fear. Now, Denver comes to Lynah Rink.

Denver is on East Hill this weekend. Make them aware. Be there at Lynah Rink. Let loose the inner lurkings of your id.

Author

Where Angels Fear to Tread is a blog dedicated to covering Cornell Big Red men's and women's ice hockey, two of the most storied programs in college hockey. WAFT endeavors to connect student-athletes, students, fans, and alumni to Cornell hockey and its proud traditions.